Nail their hands to their guns, beat them, force them to seek penance through suffering, then let them go when they reach their destination.

If they weren't so important she should kill them outright, for not only the theft but the waste of sacred ammunition and the serious danger their transgression put - not just her, but the interest of the Emperor - in.

Another idea would be to force each of them to turn over something of personal meaning and value - which she might either keep or destroy right in front of them.

Removing a hand, then later replacing it so they aren't actually inconvenienced by it, seems rather pointless - the punishment only serves a purpose if it teaches them not to repeat the behavior.

"Colonel Schaefer, sir. We's got us a fresh recruit. A real charity case, boss. From up top, if he makes himself useful and lives through where we're going, sir, his 'benefactor' says we's to cut him loose."

Of course, wouldn't actually be Shaefer's Last Chancers, but something along those lines. There's always creative ways about doing anything.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Heh, all this talk about Penal Legions reminded me of the late FASA;s Renegade Legion. One of the books had an nice episode where the TOG Penal unit commander explains the SOP to his new underling. Basically it goes like this:

- Penal units serve as cautionary example for potential troublemakers.

- As such, the service in them should be brutal and merciless. It entails one campaign or a major battle.

- 50% casualties are not worth mentioning. 60-70% normal and 80% optimal. Casualties of 90%+ are unofficially frowned upon ( see below ).

- The survivors are reinstated into regular line units. There they will spread the tale of how horrible Penal units are and this helps maintain discipline. Therefore it is in TOG;s interest that Penal units are not 100% annihilated. If service in a Penal unit would be seen as an automatic death sentence, nobody would bother. You must give the sentenced a tiny sliver of hope.

Instead of death or other corporal punishments, I would suggest they are simply declared "excommunicatus" ie. no longer Acolytes of the Inquisition. My GM did this to two of our party who accidentally/ on purpose let out some Xenos from a gladitatorial beast house onto an unsuspecting hive city. (It was a great plan in theory, trust me ) It made life interesting, because we were declared excommunicated by the local Inquisitor, not the Inquisitor we actually reported to who was on the other side of the Calixis sector, so we ignored the excommunicatus order and kept following the orders from our Inquisitor, but it did make everything extremely difficult because of course the other Inquisitor started hunting us down and we no longer had any authority with local officials. It was much worse than any corporal punishment he could have dealt out.

Leave the hands and arms on until after their current mission. If, in the course of their current mission, they fail to die for the Emperor; then a punishment ensues. Consider, this is not just simple theft... they broke into and stole sanctified items from a member of the Ecclesiarchy... from the Church of the God-Emperor... from, by extension, the God-Emperor, Himself. They have, in fact, broken faith in a very real sense.

For the Sister, should she fail to die for the Emperor of her own accord; a light punishment could be her being remanded to the Sisters Repenta (Sister Oblatia alt-advance?) and on the harsh side there is always the possible future of being attached to a penitent engine (turn in your character sheet, make a new character). Both are more flavorful than simply losing a hand to be replaced by bionics or killing her.

The other person involved? Much would depend on their position and class, I'd imagine. Anything from reparations (for the theft and loss of near unique items? Ouch.) to purification by flame.

Frankly, why would an Inquisitor keep around acolytes that freely do such things? It reflects poorly on the Inquisitor, for one and they can't ever be fully trusted, for two. Perhaps they would be useful to the Inquisitor as 'throw-a-ways'. To be given missions that they didn't wish to send his more valuable teams on. "If they succeed, good. And if they fail, also good." Such an Inquisitor, however, must always be watchful of these acolytes. They could venture further off the path of righteousness at any time.

Oh! And how about some corruption points for them as a bit of forewarning, eh?

Ha: for a while I thought that Cailieg was talking to him or herself until I realized that Unknown has the same avatar.

Necrozius said:

I noticed the same thing. But, interestingly enough, there is also a thread where Unknown is responding to Sister Cat and then LuciusT and has the same avatar as each again... Here if I wasn't imagining things. I'm curious as to the how, since when I've changed avatars, it changed all my old posts too.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Um, this 'unknown' poster has the same trick on the other posts he/she posted on, so something is going on here. A troll poster possible, or a very clever bot. Its a bit weird, glad i am not the only one to notice this.

I believe that Unknown is Lasers, since it's happened to his account before. That, in turn, would suggest that his original account got removed, only for him to replace it, so all his previous stuff got turned to Unknown rather than staying there.

I would say the sororitas PC should loose ALL her special faith based talents AND Fate points accrued to current for KNOWINGLY commiting theft of a Superiors gear. While the Superior might not know or ever find out...the Emperor sees all and he does NOT reward dishonesty in those who are held to the higher standards ( Adeptus Astartes and Sisters Sororitas ). I would think that till she made absolution AND pennance ( confession to a priest and some punishment details ) that none of her faith based abilites should work....in addition to a deduction or removal of monthly throne geld for the duration of pennance ( or until the cost of the inconvienience to the Superior is handled ). As for the other one involved....standard punishment at all levels is simple...Excommunication via the airlock for both the theft AND insane waste of such precious rare ammo on space rats....Lesson to be learned...never bite the hand that feeds you...too many other hands in the galaxy you are allowed to gnaw on instead....leave the owners and handlers hands alone...lol

Cailieg said:

Sounds like there's an Ex-Sister of Battle in the Acolyte party now. Remove the armor and the weapons and cast her out of the Sororitas.

Cobramax76 said:

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. You don't see radical or rogue Inquisitors getting the Emperor's personal Banhammer from a good smiting or two out of nowhere, so I can't see it happening to a member of the Adepta Sororitas. Depending on your intepretation of "The Emperor" (I personally go for catatonic vegetable stuck in life support while his kids ***** over the inheritance), and Faith Talents, I could see their loss, but Fate Points??? Seriously dude? All of them? even if she is repentant she isn't going to be using them much longer without any of those?

I know Dark Heresy is seen as a lethal system and all (wrongfully, in my opinion), but seriously? All Faith and all Fate?

That's way too hardcore for me.

Cobramax76 said:

I don't expect the Inquisition, as a whole, to look favourably on squandering resources such as Acolytes. They aren't usually the average chump who you scoop off the sidewalk and induct into the Inquisition.

Yes, they screwed up bigtime. I just think that helps an Inquisitor and an officer of the Adepta Sororitas gain their "trust" and "loyalty" far better than any mindless goon they had to expend some Influence recruiting because they got angry and broke their old toys.

You've got a member of the Adepta Sororitas who is now at your very mercy to go do all the things only a super-crazed-religious-zealot could do, and likely has ever-increasing access to the Convent itself. I don't remember if OP's Inquisitor was Ordo Hereticus or not, but that's a **** useful tool, and one who is GOING to follow your order to the letter because their life is in your hands. You've got a member of the freaking Adeptus Mechanicus who now owes the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition his life. You don't even WANT to know half the stuff he can go dig out of the Ad Mech for you. I personally think OP has some good 'choose your loyalty' moments ahead for their party, rather than squandering this opportunity both in-game and outside the aforementioned events.

Yes, Life is Cheap in 40k. But Inquisitors are smart enough to sell those lives for far more than they're worth.

There are 2 main problems here.

First they stole from a known friend and ally of their inquisitor. Why they did this I have no idea, in fact it is crazy. Hand out a few insanity points to all who stole or used the stolen goods.

Second and by far the biggest problem, they were incompetent and either left evidence and/or are going to confess. Not only have they embarrassed their inquisitor but have shown that they lack skill. Outright killing is too easy and not really any fun so be creative.

As an example, have the inquisitor (or his/her friend) sentence the PC's to carry a box of ammo around... A box (strapped to the back, complete with purity seals etc.) that contains a large amount of valuable and useful ammo. It weighs half of their normal carrying limit. They MUST take it with them EVERYWHERE. They must NOT open and/or use any of the ammo. Failure to carry the ammo box or opening it/ using any of the ammo will result in a death sentence. This is to continue until death or until the inquisitor says otherwise. Each PC gets his own box, or you can devise individual punishments for each PC. Another example, say for a PC who did not steal the ammo but wasted it, you could have the Inquisitor sentence him to a lash for every single bullet he fires but misses his target. Again to continue until the inquisitor deems they have learned their lesson.

Hate to say it, but your players sound like a bunch of idiots. Personally I think I'd have them be sent on a penitent mission of some sort. You know the kind where they are pretty much guaranteed to die. Yep that's how I would deal with such stupidity. Though in all honesty I'd have a hard time continuing to run a game with such idgits.

Atheosis said:

Wow, that's harsh. You do know there's a difference between the player and the character and the decisions a player makes vs the decisions his or her character makes, right?

While i don't know the OP's play-group, I do know that not all groups aim to solely play as supper effective, intelligent, tactical geniuses. Sometimes, a player or group chooses to play careless, dim-whited, or some other screw-up to release stress (especially if they have a problem solving or managerial day job that demands 110% of them). Other times, a good roleplayer will get their character killed knowing what the character is about to do is the stupidest thing in the world for them to do, but what their character knows, their established personality, and their established goals and method of operation dictates that they take the said stupid course. Whether this is true of the OP's group or not, I can't say, but I can say that chances are, the characters are not the players. The characters characters did something stupid, the players merely played a game. Keep it strait.

Graver said:

My players are of this milieu. None of them are stupid. But we keep player knowledge and character knowledge quite seperate. As they took the ammo the players were talking about how terrible the trouble they would get into was going to be. They, as mentioned in the OP, asked I look into ideas as they wanted their f-up to be rich in its ending.

It ended up mattering little. The ship is in a state of red alert, finally out of the warp, and "most" of the Daemonic presence has been cleared. The Tech Priest died do to ending up getting the "spreadable" virulent corruption from the Daemon (Chaos Undivided Daemonic Entity, shares some Nugle and Tzeentch like traits), but went out of a heroic note, when he noted his perceptions changing, noted his anger rising (no rite of Pure Thought), he chose to go out ina blaze of glory and ended up icing one of the Daemons with a jury rigged explosive. He even managed not to anger the machine spirits with his idea. His rigged explosive consisted of naught but an intelligent choice to shoot something that would explode.

The Sister paid a for a Deus Ex (burn two fate points to avoid a death you cannot escape) to not die in a remarkable explosion during a battle with the corrupted Engineerium Defender Mark CCIX (catch the reference? E.D. 209) at its conclusion. And so is right now riding on the coatails of a miracle of the Emperor.

The Legatine will punish them when appropriate but right now they have been instrumental in routing the Daemons. As such she is utilizing them in that manner at least until the dust settles.

Alexis

*smiles*

Graver said:

Fair enough. And if that's true, they won't mind all dying.

The Inquisition is not a good place for the slow-witted.